Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Two weekends ago, Gabriel booked a cute little motel on Main Street in Panguitch, Utah and we spent our 7 year wedding anniversary in Bryce Canyon.

(click on pictures for incredible panoramic views)

We love to celebrate any occasion, and find no better reason to celebrate then the day we got married! We have a tradition of always planning an adventure when August 1st marks the calendar. One year we were rained out on our camping adventure to Mt. Hebo, (we owned a leaky tent) so we brought the party indoors to a vacant apartment in our complex. We set up our sleeping bags and roasted marshmallows over our camping stove. Sadly, we didn't have a working camera that year, but trust me, it was a fun unique anniversary.

Panguitch is a cute, little, lesser known town about 20 miles outside of the Canyon. The town is riddled with wood cutouts of horses and cowboys/girls, so naturally, we couldn't resist.

Bryce Canyon is breathtaking! We were able to hike down into the canyon, where you see the grouping of trees in the above picture, along the Navajo Loop. We also hiked along the rim of the canyon, up to Inspiration Point where we were able to witness a panoramic view of the hoodoos from a birds eye perspective. And on Fairyland Loop, we hiked eye level with the hoodoos and perched ourselves atop them staring down the chasms and fissures below us.

It was at Bryce Canyon where the infamous camera incident happened. We were hiking up to the Mossy Cave.

We had made it across the waterfall and over the embankment, and we were just a few steps from safety when I tripped-spilling the camera out of the bag and watching, mouth agape, hearing Gabriel gasp in slow motion, as the camera tumbled, rolling down the rocky hill and into the water becoming completely submerged, as more water rushed around and likely through it.

If this happens to you: Immediately remove the batteries and SD memory card; there will also be a small backup battery, remove that as well. Unfasten any opening, such as, flash, battery case, lens, etc. Shake any remaining water loose, and leave the camera resting lens up-you want all water to drain away from the lens. If you are at home, use a hair dryer periodically for the next few days, to blow air into the camera to flush out any remaining water. By doing this, you are giving your camera a remote chance of surviving this untimely disaster.

Our only option was to do the above, and hope the hot dessert air and baking temperatures in the car would help the water evaporate. When we arrived home much later that evening, we put the SD card in rice, and began with the hair dryer technique. Two days later we felt safe enough to replace the batteries and have a go at turning it on... success.

Despite this incident we had a wonderful time.

In Old Town Bryce Canyon, there are a number of cute little shoppes selling gifts, collectibles, and treasures. They even have an adorable old town parlor serving sugar cones topped with heaping scoops of ice cream. They had interesting fun flavors I'd never heard of, cherry chocolate chip, bear tracks, and pink almond. Instinctively, I came home to create my own unknown flavor:

LET me just SAY. this is THE BEST Ice cream in the WHOLE entire world! seriously! catherine! what the heck!? you are amazing! it turned out SOO amazing! i can't stop THINKING about it!you are AWESOME!!! you rock girl!thank you for letting me try this! i am soo upset i don't live in utah so i can test all your goodies!you are awesome!this IS the best ice cream I HAVE EVER HAD! EVER!!!!

My husband spent his first summer out of High School working on Ruby's Inn; truly that was the inspiration for the trip... but they were all booked up for the weekend! We did however visit Ruby's Inn and eat at the buffet!